30.3.09

Gatesed Again?

I have upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 on my laptop and even though it starts my gmail account it does so with a blip: rendering of the CSS I THINK. I press Ctrl+F5 and the blip goes away.

I installed IE8 on my desktop about an hour ago and gmail won’t load at all now. I installed FireFox and it opened gmail with no problems at all.

When will Gates either get it right or stop interfering with other software that we do actually like to use even if he wants to perpetuate his world domination theme?

DW

Marks and Spencer’s Ordinary Chap Strikes Again

He’s in the news again: that ordinary man, Sir Stuart Rose, of M&S.

M&S shareholders would have the chance to vote on whether an independent chairman should be appointed by July next year under a resolution proposed by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum [LAPFF] on Sunday.

Pressure has been building on M&S to resolve concerns about an eventual successor to Sir Stuart Rose, who was elevated from chief executive to executive chairman of the company last year.

Sir Stuart is scheduled to stay in the post, which combines the role of chief executive and chairman, until July 2011.

But the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum said on Sunday it would file a motion at the company’s annual meeting in July that would call for the appointment of an independent chairman by July 2010.

See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ad774e0-1c92-11de-977c-00144feabdc0.html

In an interview on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, the business correspondent asked questions of a representative of the LAPFF questions that suggest it is a good idea to leave Rose alone. Fair enough, the interviewer was trying to provide some balance to the arguments. However, I firmly believe that Rose has flouted corporate governance rules so much and his track record at M&S is so poor that the shareholders of M&S should simply tell the man to resign from one if not both of his posts forthwith.

My reasoning is that Rose has been bad for shareholders and that his track record over the last few years at the helm of M&S have been far from spectacular. Here is further evidence of my case:

Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks and Spencer, admitted it had made several “basic shop keeping” mistakes when launching its troubled first store on the Chinese mainland [in Shanghai].

See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2bac61ae-f6e2-11dd-8a1f-0000779fd2ac.html

The basic errors are actually fundamental errors and include stocking clothes that are far too big for the target market and a supply chain that failed to deliver the food they wanted to sell.

The fundamental nature of the error they made on the clothing they were selling was that they failed to appreciate that on average an Oriental person is significantly smaller than people from elsewhere. Nevertheless, what they did, under Rose’s leadership don’t forget, was to assume that the people of Shanghai were equivalent to the people of Hong Kong and stock their shops accordingly. After all, they all look the same to Rosie. Clot!

In the second of the FT articles I am referring to here, Rose is credited with:

“We need to get the A to Z of sizing right and we need better market research,” said Sir Stuart

Dear M&S Shareholder, your glorious leader sanctioned the opening of a shop in Shanghai complicit in the knowledge that inadequate market research had been done. A potentially extremely serious mistake.

Rose’s answer to all of this is reported to be that M&S will sit it out in Shanghai. Chairman and CEO, eh?

In the second of the two FT articles I have referred to here, Rose says several times that M&S made basic shop keeping errors. Exactly, Rose is a basic shop keeper who is occupying the strategist’s chair. Time to go Sir Stuart.

DW